


Family is where you Find It

by swizzlesticks



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Also Bodhi is just so good ok?, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, And yet somehow still angsty, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Happy Ending, Fix-It, Happy Family, Hurt/Comfort, Rebelcaptain - Freeform, Work In Progress, eventually, smutless, that's always awkward when that happens, unexpectedly, womp womp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-17 21:59:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9348296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swizzlesticks/pseuds/swizzlesticks
Summary: The whole crew of Rogue One survives the battle on Scarif, but figuring out what comes after is a lot harder than any of them had expected or planned for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I loved Rogue One so much, and the ending broke my heart (which was of course exactly what it was supposed to do). Basically I wanted these poor kids to find some happiness, but amazingly, they've still got to go through some crap first.

The first thing Cassian knows is that there is mesh pressing into his face. He isn’t sure where he is, and lifts his head slightly, which is when the rest of his injuries make themselves known. He gasps for air as pain washes over him, but it only makes his chest hurt worse. Where is he? Where's K2? 

With a groan, Cassian makes himself lift his head again, and take in where he is. A metal platform above a dizzying drop, data banks stretching over his head. Everything comes back in a rush-- Kay’s desperate instruction that they climb. Krennic nearly shooting Jyn. Where is Jyn?

Cassian shudders in pain as he forces himself semi-upright to look around better. There’s no sign of the girl overhead. Krennic is gone too. And Bodhi? Baze? Chirrut? Cassian gropes at his pockets for his communicator, only to find its crushed remains digging into his thigh. Panic sets in, and he looks up at the data bank again. There’s no way he can climb that. He’s not even sure he can stand, let alone…

His eyes travel over his surroundings, and he finally realizes that the platform he landed on is a catwalk leading into a hallway. There must be another way up. He’s not letting Krennic get Jyn. Or the plans. He’s come too far to see this mission fail-- if they fail, the alliance disbands, and Cassian can’t let that happen. He owes Jyn this. And Kay. He’s relieved to see his blaster lying on the platform nearby, seemingly intact, and attaches it to his belt. He’ll need it.

He manages to get to his feet, but the effort winds him, and he leans heavily on the wall. He tries not to think about his injuries, but even so they make themselves known. If his pelvis isn’t broken, he’ll be amazed. Cassian clutches at his ribs with one hand as he struggles along the wall into the hallway, no clear sense of where he’s going but up. How long was he unconscious? He has no idea. He makes his way, stumbling, to an elevator, then sags to the floor once it’s in motion, still holding his ribs. 

He doesn’t often have the luxury to mourn for people, but he takes a moment to mourn for Kay as the elevator carries him upwards. Last time Cassian remembered being in this much pain, the droid had saved him, carrying him out of there as though Cassian didn’t weigh a thing. Kay had become his family, the only family Cassian was willing to extend feelings for, because droids don’t die, not like Cassian’s first family. But K2 is gone, and Cassian sucks in air as a horrible empty sensation drills into his chest. He doesn’t expect he’ll outlive the droid very long. But if there was ever a time Cassian wanted to hear Kay’s droll, sarcastic voice, it was now, facing death on a suicide mission Cassian might be too late to save. He feels the droid’s absence like another wound, and he grits his teeth against it, fighting back tears. This is why he never gives himself the luxury of mourning. There’s still work to be done.

The elevator shudders, slowing to a stop, and Cassian finds it harder to make it to his feet than he did the first time. He suspects adrenaline is keeping the worst of the pain back, and almost hopes that he dies before it gets a chance to wear off. If he’s going to die anyway, it seems only fair. He just hopes he’s not too late.

The door slides open, and Cassian hears Jyn’s voice, furious, proud, talking to someone. Krennic? Yes. Cassian can hear him too. There isn’t time. Cassian stumbles through the door, abandoning the walls he had been relying on to stay upright, as close to a run as he can come, mostly momentum and trying to stay upright. He swerves, his shoulder hits a pillar, and he uses it as an anchor, ignoring the pain in his ribs. As his vision clears slightly, he can see Krennic’s absurd white cape. It had made him hard to hit in the databank, but Cassian won’t make that mistake again, even with his vision blurred with pain. It takes two hands to hold the blaster steady, but Krennic hasn’t seen him, and Cassian fires off a shot at the very center of the white blur. The man falls. Jyn, who had been standing on the precarious mesh bridge at the side of the tower, rushes to the center console, and Cassian registers an automatic-sounding voice droning sending...transmission…

They’ve done it. Bodhi must have gotten the rebel fleet to knock the shield gate down. And somehow, Cassian had made it up here in time to stop Krennic from destroying what they’d sacrificed so much for. Jyn has avenged her father, and if they’re lucky, she’s saved the galaxy too. Cassian doesn’t feel that lucky, but they’re alive, aren’t they?

Jyn turns and gives him a brilliant smile, and Cassian can’t help it, a soft groan escapes him as he sags against the pillar. He shouldn’t have run to the pillar. He’s glad he did, of course, but…

Jyn comes to his side, concerned, and almost makes a go for Krennic’s prone form when she sees Cassian can stay upright (with the help of the pillar) on his own.

“Hey! Leave it.” Cassian tries to put what he’s thinking into the words. Let Krennic know he lost. Let him live just a few minutes longer knowing it was you who bested him. He deserves that. “Leave it.” 

Whether Jyn understands what he means or not, she lets Cassian lean on her, and he’s grateful for it as they make their way staggering to the elevator. He doesn’t want to die up here on top of this tower with Krennic. Their suicide mission was a success, and there’s only one part left incomplete; the dying part. But Cassian imagines that’ll come soon enough. 

~~~

Bodhi had thought he would die.

He had thought he would die when he had run through the blaster fire to complete the connection between the transmission tower and the ship. He had thought he would die when Saw Guerrera sicced that awful creature on him. He had thought he would die when Jedha city exploded into an avalanching tidal wave of rubble. But especially he thinks he will die when a stormtrooper throws a grenade into the ship.

It’s too late. There’s nothing Bodhi can do but stare at the blinking bomb, fear and resignation mingling instantaneously in his stomach, and wait for it to go off. Only, it never does.

Why Chirrut’s prayer pops into his head as the bomb finishes blinking and goes black, Bodhi can’t say. All he knows is that, whether the grenade is live or not, he wants it out of his ship. He swats it out, and flinches back wildly as it lands among a troop of stormtroopers outside. It had been live after all, and Bodhi cringes back behind the empty boxes in the cargo bay as heat from the orange explosion washes into the small space. Smoke fills the hold, and Bodhi’s heart pounds. That could have been him. Why wasn’t it?

Still, Bodhi’s message has been sent. He’s done his job. 

“Cassian?” He tries his communicator. “Cassian, are you there? K2?”

There’s nothing but static, and Bodhi’s heart drops. What’s happened to Jyn and Cassian and K2? Did they get the plans sent?

He ducks as blaster fire sparks overhead, and without looking to see where it came from, scrambles to the cockpit. A blast grazes his shoulder, and Bodhi cries out as he slips through the reinforced doors. They won’t stop another grenade blast, but they slow down the blaster fire.

I’m one with the force and the force is with me. I’m one with the force and the force is with me. He can't stop thinking it. 

Bodhi’s not even sure he knows what the force is, exactly, but he mutters Chirrut’s prayer all the same. He has no weapons, and he shivers as blaster fire pounds at the door just behind him. The stormtroopers will get in sooner or later.

~~~

Baze Malbus has never given up on anything in his life, and he has no intention of giving up on Chirrut. He’d lost his faith in the force, it was true, but he’s never given up on Chirrut, and Chirrut is his entire life.

The man is unconscious, and Baze is running. Blaster fire explods all around him, he can smell hot plasma and sour beach salt in the air, but if Chirrut can walk unscathed through that hail of blaster fire, Baze is going to have a fucking word with this force of his if it lets the man die now.

Grimly, he shoots anyone who gets in his way. There are a lot of them, and Baze doesn’t care. Chirrut is his one and only priority. They’ve done their part. Chirrut is going to live, if Baze has to kill everyone on this entire forsaken base to make sure it happens.

Rogue One is overrun with stormtroopers-- why, Baze can’t say, but he shoots the lot of them, and forces open the cockpit doors to find Bodhi Rook trembling and clutching a pipe wrench as though ready to club someone with it, a defiant look in his eyes.

“Are you ready to leave?” Baze asks.

“Uh--” Bodhi stammers for a moment. “Yes, but what about the others?”

Baze wants to snort at the kid’s optimism, but he can’t, not remembering the look on Jyn’s face when he had called her little sister.

“We’ll get them if we see them.”

~~~

Jyn supposes it’s a bit stupid to be worried about Cassian when both of their lives are probably about to end, but she’s worried about him nonetheless. Not that Cassian is generally a chatterbox, but he’s fallen silent, his face a concerning greyish color, damp with sweat and his eyes slightly glazed with pain.

Still, there’s no real need to talk. She knows it as well as he does-- they’ve done what they set out to do, but there’s no serious hope of them getting out of this alive. They have a single blaster between them-- Cassian had given her the one he’d been carrying without explanation, not that she needs him to explain. She practically has to carry him from the tower, so much of his weight is on her in the end, and it isn’t as though she herself is uninjured.

Of course, with the death star hovering above them, and the explosion growing on the horizon, all of it seems quite insignificant. Between the pain in her leg and the ragged breathing of the man leaning heavily on her as they collapse at the edge of the beach, Jyn wonders if there was any other way for this to end. She can’t help watching the explosion. She wants to look away, but it’s mesmerizing, like staring into a fire at night, and as she watches it grows closer and closer. When she finally tears her eyes away from it, they land on Cassian, who’s watching her. 

“Your father would have been proud, Jyn.”

It’s a sweet thing for him to say. The cynical part of Jyn supposes that with only moments left to go, he may as well be nice, but the less cynical part of her is touched, and she takes his hand. She wishes she could say something similar to him, but it occurs to her that she has no idea who he’s lost, who was important to him, or what they would say about his sacrifice. Instead she squeezes his hand slightly, and they both look back out at the growing explosion. 

It’s a beautiful place to die, Jyn thinks remotely. It’s not something she’s ever had the luxury of caring about, but the beach sand is warm from the sun, although the air smells of explosives and blood. And Cassian is right, she thinks. Not that he’d known her father, as far as she knew the closest they’d come to meeting was when Cassian pointed a sniper rifle at her father’s head. But he’s right. Galen Erso would be proud of what they’ve done here today. Sad, but proud. They’ve done their best.

Involuntarily, she finds herself reaching for Cassian, pulling him close via their connected hands. She can hear the roar of the approaching wave in the distance now, and Cassian doesn’t protest, rising to his knees so he can wrap his arms around her as she does to him. There isn’t anything to say. Jyn can feel both of their hearts beating, and she knows she’s probably holding him too tightly, after all she’d seen him bounce off of those beams as he fell down the shaft of the databank, but he holds her just as tightly, and she thinks that maybe this isn’t such a bad way to die. 

Neither of them hear the ship approaching, the sound of it masked by the sound of the oncoming explosion, which is becoming deafening. Jyn feels Cassian stiffen slightly, his head shifting, and for a second she thinks that she has mis-estimated, and the wave is about to overtake them, but then she feels a hand on her shoulder that doesn’t belong to Cassian.

“We’ve got to move.” 

That heavy, deliberate voice can only belong to Baze, and Jyn looks up at him in shock, but Baze is busy studying the horizon.

“Hurry!” 

He starts back towards the ship, and Jyn gives Cassian a wide-eyed look, still startled. She bolts to her feet, the pain in her leg making her stagger, and tries to pull him up by his hand, but any strength Cassian still had left is now gone. He makes it almost halfway to his feet before collapsing, his head sagging as he catches himself on his free hand in the soft sand.

“Cassian, come on!” 

She can’t pull him up, she hasn’t got the strength left to get the two of them to the ship fast enough, and for one horrible, gut-lurching moment she contemplates letting him go. He seems to have the same thought, pulling his hand away from her, but suddenly Baze is there, muttering angrily. He scoops Cassian up-- Jyn sees the man’s face go white, but she’s too focused on following them to even provide a comment. Baze deposits Cassian inside and hurries to the cockpit, and Jyn shuts the door as the ship takes off. The speed at which they shift into warp suggests that the wave was closer than Jyn had realized, and she wonders if they’d done any calculations at all. She finds she doesn’t care, and collapses exhausted next to Cassian.

“We should’ve kept a copy of those plans.” Cassian’s voice is almost inaudible, and Jyn looks at him. Despite herself, she feels a tiny flash of anger. They’d done their best. Should-haves were of no use now.

“Sure. Because we had time for that.”

She’s startled to see a tiny smirk on his face. It fades as his eyes slowly close, and Jyn feels panic grip her chest for a moment.

“Cassian?” There’s no response, and she shakes him, although she shouldn’t. “No. Don’t you dare die.” She puts two fingers at the side of his neck, and relief floods her when she finds his pulse. 

She keeps her hand there until they arrive back at the rebel base, and she finally allows herself to slip into unconsciousness as well.


	2. Chapter 2

K2 is extremely confused by the realization that he’s conscious. More than that, he’s confused by the fact that he isn’t in pain. Not that droids feel pain, exactly, according to most humans, but K2 has always maintained that the series of electrical impulses providing feedback on physical damage in droids is a lot like how humans feel pain. He’s not really clear why humans get so defensive about it.

All of this passes through his mind over the span of less than a second, and his eyes focus on the ceiling. Not the ceiling at Scarif, but a more familiar-looking one. He looks around and is even more surprised to see Bodhi Rook sitting nearby, watching him with wide eyes. It’s then that K2 realizes his body feels wrong. He looks down at himself, sitting up gingerly, then turns back to Bodhi.

“Really? A protocol droid?” At least his voice sounds the same.

Bodhi ducks his head, but K2 can see that he’s grinning. There’s a bandage around the kid’s head, another on his arm, and a cast on his leg. K2 doesn’t want to ask, he knows the odds, but…

“What happened to the others?”

Bodhi’s smile drops from his face as though it had never been there to begin with, and K2 studies him. Droids aren’t supposed to feel worry for others. Certainly Imperial droids aren’t supposed to feel worry for others. It had been a revelation to Kay when Cassian had first reprogrammed him, and it had taken quite a lot of getting used to. In some ways, Kay feels that he’s never quite adjusted to it. Bodhi had been closest to the ship-- he’d had the best odds of making it out alive. But Cassian and Jyn, in their fragile human bodies trying to let their fury carry them all the way up the tower without being killed? They’d be lucky if they made it to the top, let alone back down again.

“Jyn, Baze, Cassian and Chirrut made it out. And-- and me.” Bodhi still looks somber. “Everyone else…” He shakes his head, and Kay silently lets relief flood his circuits. Cassian usually has a knack for beating the odds, but that’s generally because Kay sticks around to save him from his stupid stubbornness. Kay owes Jyn a thank-you, and not just for the blaster.

Bodhi looks up, suddenly rallying. “Uh, we-- we didn’t recover your body. I took Cassian’s backup, I guess when the shields went down it started remotely backing up memory data? I’m not really sure. And I set you up in the best body I could find. It’s not exactly--”

“Bodhi.” Kay has a soft spot for Bodhi, and he doesn’t know why, but it’s been true since they first picked him up on Jedha. He puts a hand on the young pilot’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

To Kay’s amusement, Bodhi blushes, but he still doesn’t look happy. 

“I just wanted to do something right.”

Kay looks at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Bodhi opens his mouth and closes it, and when he opens it again, he changes the subject. “Uh, I think Cassian is awake, if you want to go see him.”

Kay really does. His soft spot for Bodhi will have to wait; whatever’s going on, whatever’s upsetting him, all that can wait. Kay would take off at a run if his legs could still manage a running pace, but all he can do is hobble prissily towards the med bay, and plan to have words with someone about getting a better body.

~~~

Jyn knows Cassian would probably like her to leave now and again and give him some privacy to deal with his thoughts, but she can’t bring herself to do it, and maybe on some level understanding that, Cassian hasn’t asked. 

He hasn’t been awake long, less than a day, but since the initial bustle of medical droids moved off, Jyn has been left alone with him. 

They don’t talk. He’d asked her if Bodhi and Chirrut had made it out, and she’d told him yes, and then he’d asked after a series of the other captains and Jyn had had to swallow a lump in her throat to tell him no, they were the only ones who’d made it. He’d stopped asking questions after that, and now he simply stares up at the ceiling, wincing periodically. Jyn had pressed a medical droid early on to tell her the extent of Cassian and Chirrut’s injuries, but when the droid finally told her, Jyn was sorry she’d asked.

Not wanting to intrude on Baze’s vigil at Chirrut’s bedside, she’d come here. And now that she’s here, she doesn’t want to leave. It’s as though part of her doesn’t trust the fact that they survived Scarif, as if she takes her eyes off Cassian for too long his heart monitor will slow and stop, and four rooms over, without her to watch over Cassian, Chirrut will die too. Then Bodhi, off who knows where in the compound. She wishes she could keep them all in the same room to keep an eye on them, but Bodhi disappeared first chance he got, and she hardly wants to send anyone chasing after him. They all owe their lives to him and Baze. He’s earned some rest.

Someone’s at the door, and Jyn stiffens, turning to look. It’s General Draven, and she doesn’t entirely relax her grip on her baton. It’s the only weapon she’s allowed to have in the med bay, and she’s not entirely certain she doesn’t want to use it on the man who refused to support her in the council, despite knowing she was right. A man who, if she understood the ambient chatter around the base well enough, had not only been the one who gave Cassian secret orders to kill her father, but had sent in the bombers that had actually killed him, and nearly killed all of them.

“Erso.” He gives her a curt nod, which she doesn’t return. “I need to speak to Captain Andor.”

Jyn opens her mouth, about to tell him exactly how much she cares what he needs, but Cassian’s voice cuts her off.

“Jyn.” She looks at him, and he nods once at her. “Go.” The expression on his face is bleak, but he also looks angry. And she doesn’t think he’s angry with her. “Go.” He says again.

Jyn stands, still holding her baton, and stalks to the door. Whatever’s going on here, she doesn’t like it. The door is barely closed behind her before the shouting begins. 

At first she only hears Draven, and she turns on her heel, ready to storm back in, but then she hears Cassian’s voice, peppered with swear words even she’s never heard before, shouting right back at him, and she freezes. Whatever’s going on in there, she suspects she can’t help. She can’t quite make out what they’re saying except for the occasional word-- she catches ‘traitor’ a few times from Draven, usually followed immediately by swearing from Cassian, but she can hear that Cassian’s voice is hoarse with pent-up fury and pain, and that he has a lot to say. Finally, she makes out Draven’s voice, practically echoing in the small room.

“The plans were lost!”

Jyn feels ice trickle into her chest. The conversation in the room continues, but now she can only hear Draven. Like her, Cassian must have been shocked into silence. Jyn slides down the wall until she’s sitting, holding the baton close to her chest.

The plans were lost? How? That couldn’t… 

Furiously, she wipes at the tears gathering in her eyes. That’s the only copy, now that the Scarif base has been destroyed. Suddenly she understands why the empire had attacked the base. It had been insurance. All those people died for nothing. Her father died for nothing, dedicated fifteen long years to building a weakness that the rebellion now has no hope of exploiting. The empire has won. The death star is complete, they had been too late to stop it. And now, with it, the empire can rule the galaxy unchallenged. 

The door next to her opens with a hiss, and General Draven steps out. He looks down at her dispassionately, his face slightly red from yelling, and stalks off down the hallway. Medical droids pass her as she sits in a daze, and when she finally gathers herself to try the door, she finds that it’s locked, and is told by a sympathetic medical droid that Captain Andor isn’t seeing any visitors at the moment.

~~~

Chirrut is not unfamiliar with pain. 

When he wakes up with the sensation that his entire back is on fire, he lets the pain subside before opening his eyes. Not that he can see anything, of course, but more out of habit. It annoys Baze when Chirrut walks around with his eyes closed and Chirrut has enough ways to irritate his husband, he doesn’t need to come up with new methods.

He knows without looking that Baze will be there. He always has been. Chirrut has known him practically his whole life, and at this point he can feel him like an extension of his own body. As surely as Chirrut can reach up and touch the tip of his own nose, he can sense Baze. Where they are hardly matters. They’re together.

“Baze.” Chirrut’s voice is soft, but he can hear Baze startle upright. From his even breathing, the man had probably been dozing. 

“Chirrut…” Baze has never been especially wordy, and Chirrut reaches towards him, pulling him close. It hurts to move, but that doesn’t matter.

“I know. I’m sorry.” It isn’t an admission Chirrut often makes. “I had to.”

Baze snorts a little, his face still buried in Chirrut’s shoulder. “I know.” His voice breaks, and Chirrut can feel the man’s tears. “Never do that again.”

“I won’t.” Chirrut holds Baze close, rocking him slightly and murmuring reassurances. “I promise, Baze. For you, I won’t.”


	3. Chapter 3

The fact of the matter is that Cassian hadn’t been prepared to survive Scarif. He isn’t handling it well, he knows that, but what’s he supposed to do? He can’t even sit up properly. All of his closest, oldest friends are dead, even K2, and… he isn’t. Again.

That wasn’t how it was supposed to end this time.

And now… he looks at the door where Draven’s back had disappeared hours ago. All that sacrifice, and for what? They hadn’t gained anything. The empire’s weapon is officially in operation-- Draven had told him what had happened to Alderaan. The general hadn’t said it outright, but Cassian knows; the Empire only felt so free to use the death star on Alderaan because of their certainty that it won’t be challenged. They only had that certainty because of the failure of the mission on Scarif. Rogue One failed, and they failed badly enough that they’d ruined the last hope the alliance had. That was on Cassian.

Tears prick at Cassian’s eyes, but they don’t fall. He should let Jyn back into the room. He can’t cut her off, none of this is her fault. The alliance had been the ones who came after her to begin with, on Cassian’s information. But he doesn’t think he can even look at her if she’s let in. He’s not sure she’ll even want to see him. All that sacrifice, and this is his fault. 

He’s always had a bad habit of running through alternate outcomes in his head after the fact, and he finds that he can’t stop doing that now. He should’ve told Jyn to get the hard copy before they went down to the beach. He should’ve left a message for Mon Mothma letting her know what they were doing. He had made this possible, so it’s on him that it had failed. 

Some part of him, the part that sounds a little bit like Kay, tells him he’s being too hard on himself. Draven would disagree, though. Cassian shuts his eyes, but it does nothing to block out Draven’s voice echoing in his memory, listing the names of everyone who had died. Everyone in the fleet, everyone on the ground, everyone missing in action from Admiral Raddus’s flagship. Cassian almost surely would have blamed himself anyway, but General Draven’s fury is all he needs to confirm. He should have just died on that beach. For once in his life, he had been so sure that they were doing the right thing. And he’d been wrong.

“Cassian.”

Cassian’s head snaps up at the sound of a familiar voice, and he experiences a sense of not quite being sure what’s real as he looks at the protocol droid in the doorway. That door had been locked. And no protocol droid in the world could sound like Kay.

Still…

“Kay?” Cassian’s voice cracks. It’s too much to hope. That backup hadn’t been updated in years, not since Cassian had first reprogrammed Kay…

The droid cocks its head at him, something Cassian has never seen a protocol droid do.

“You didn’t take very good care of yourself, did you?”

Cassian breaks and laughs, sure now beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s Kay. He feels tears on his cheeks, and he’s not sure when that started. “Kay, how did you-- I--”

The droid hobbles in, and if Cassian was feeling better, he would poke fun at K2’s new constipated gait.

“Bodhi found your backup. Apparently, it updates remotely. My memory files are up-to-date.” K2 sounds smug, but he shifts, looking uncomfortable. “I am going to need a new body.”

“You don’t think that one suits you?” Maybe Cassian can tease Kay a bit after all. His chest still feels tight, his abdomen a howl of pain. Everyone still died for no reason, and Cassian can feel that knowledge like a pit behind his ribcage. But K2’s unexpected return gives Cassian more happiness than he has any right to deserve, and he can’t help but grab onto that feeling. His voice is quieter when he speaks again. “I thought I lost you.”

K2 looks at him, deadpan. “After what I heard about you? How far did you fall, exactly?”

“I don’t know, I wasn’t counting meters.” Cassian mutters, and K2 rolls his eyes.

“You’re going to get yourself killed some day.” He says matter-of-factly, and Cassian laughs again, a surprised snort that makes his ribs stab with pain, because the other option is crying.

“I missed you, Kay.”

~~~

Bodhi is a little bit terrified when he sees Jyn coming. She has this look on her face like nobody had better argue with her, and she’s headed straight for him. He puts up his hands up almost involuntarily as she gets close, stepping backwards towards the room the rebels had grudgingly lent him. 

“What are you…?”

“You’re coming with me.” She grabs him by the wrist and starts to pull him towards the med bay, and Bodhi’s startled enough that he doesn’t even dig in his heels.

“You-- what?”

Jyn rounds on him, and Bodhi shrinks slightly at her expression. “We’re going to see Baze and Chirrut. I’m tired of everyone being in different places.”

Bodhi limps along after her, aware that Jyn herself still has a pretty significant limp. 

“I thought you were with Cassian.” It’s a question, although it doesn’t sound like one, and Jyn snaps at him. 

“I was. He’s not taking visitors. Now come on.” She drags him the rest of the way to the med bay without once letting go of his wrist, and pushes open the door to Baze and Chirrut’s room without knocking. The two men look up, slightly startled, although Baze puts a hand on Chirrut’s arm when he sees who it is, and they both relax after a second. Baze sits at the edge of Chirrut’s bed, and Bodhi feels like an intruder when he realizes they’d been sitting with their foreheads pressed together. Even Jyn seems to hesitate.

“What is it?” Baze is the first to speak. His voice is friendly, despite the blunt question.

Jyn looks momentarily lost, and Bodhi speaks up. “We… wanted to come see you.”

Chirrut smiles, and Baze gestures to the apparently unused bed a few feet behind him. Evidently Baze has been sleeping in the chair, closer to Chirrut. Bodhi leads Jyn to the bed and they both sit down. He only realizes it’s awkward after a moment, and scoots away from her. Chirrut looks amused, but the mood in the room is somber, and Bodhi guesses that everyone knows what he’d overheard days ago, that the plans have been lost. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to tell any of them, had set to work on K2 instead. 

“All is as the force wills it.” Chirrut says into the silence, and Bodhi isn’t sure why, but he finds it comforting. Jyn just smiles sadly.

“Maybe the force and I have different priorities.” She says quietly, and Chirrut chuckles once.

“You sound like Captain Andor.”

That shuts her up, and the mood in the room returns to somber silence. Bodhi studies Chirrut. At least the man looks like he’s recovering well. Bodhi doesn’t know how long they had Chirrut in a bacta tank, but he’d bet that Baze hadn’t slept the entire time. The bacta tank seems to have done Chirrut a great deal of good, at least.

“They’ll find the plans.” Surprisingly, it’s Baze who says this. He looks at all of them, but his gaze lingers on Jyn. 

“How do you know?” She asks, and Bodhi’s sure he’s not the only one who thinks her voice sounds like a challenge.

Baze shrugs. “The hard part was getting it off of Scarif. Right? Now it’s a shell game. And you can always win at a shell game if you know how to play.” He nods at the door. “I think the rebels are pretty good at it.”

Jyn relaxes slightly, and Baze offers her a slight smile before turning back to Chirrut. The two men hold hands, and room is quiet again, but not as tense of a silence as before. 

“Does Captain Andor know?” Chirrut’s voice finally breaks the quiet.

Jyn nods, looking down. “He knows. General Draven yelled it at him.”

Bodhi winces. He remembers Draven from the council meeting as a suspicious, abrasive presence, and imagines that would be one of the worst ways to hear the news. 

He clears his throat. “Uh, K2 is back.” He feels the need to have some good news. “Cassian had a backup, and I put it into a deactivated protocol droid. So.” He glances up. “K2 is back.” He feels a little foolish repeating himself, but he’s kind of shocked to see the startled and impressed looks on everyone’s faces. Jyn punches his shoulder gently and Bodhi jumps slightly. “I-- would have told you sooner, but I only just finished.” He isn’t sure what else to say. “He’s shorter now.”

That gets Baze to actually snort, and Jyn cracks a smile.

“Where is he?” Jyn asks, and Bodhi hesitates.

“With Cassian, I think.”

It isn’t hurt that passes over her face, exactly, but it’s something. Bodhi’s not good at reading people and Jyn’s no exception, but he would almost call the expression some kind of pity.

“It’s better that he has someone.” Chirrut says to no one in particular.

“He’ll be alright.” To Bodhi’s surprise, that’s Jyn. He looks at her, but she doesn’t look at him. Her chin is set, and he thinks he recognizes the stubborn expression. He doesn’t offer comment, and neither does anyone else. The conversation peters out and Bodhi sits with them all in comfortable silence until Chirrut dozes off, and Bodhi’s own eyes begin to close.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the wait, everyone! Grad school and trying to find emotional energy is hard. But! Please let me know what you think in the comments, I'm going out on a limb with this fic, and (much to my surprise), rebelcaptain seems to be happening, so. Yeah, that wasn't planned. But I think I'm going to make this into a series, and this is going to be the first part. There may be one more chapter before I jump to the next fic in the series, I'll decide that when I don't have two papers due tomorrow (which...right now I do). Enjoy, I hope!

Jyn isn’t sure who she’s expecting to see come through the door when it hisses open, but when she sees the protocol droid standing in the doorway, her first instinct is to tell it to leave them alone and let them sleep. Everyone’s so exhausted, she’s the only one of the Rogue One crew who had been woken up by the sound of the door opening, much to her surprise. Luckily, she thinks better of the comment as she looks at the scuffed silver droid. After what Bodhi had told them...

“Kay?”

The droid backs up and starts going down the hallway and for a moment Jyn thinks she must be wrong, but then he stops and looks back at her.

“Are you coming?”

She would know that sarcastic tone anywhere, and a grin splits her face. She may not have a long history of getting along with K2 very well, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t ecstatic he’s back. 

She gets up carefully from the bed, doing her best not to disturb Bodhi, who had unconsciously curled around her after he’d fallen asleep. She suspects he might be embarrassed by that if he knew he’d done it, but it’s comforting to have them all there like this, together, in the same room. With the warmth of Bodhi pressed against her side, Jyn had actually managed to sleep herself for a while without the sort of nightmares she’d been having since Scarif. Bodhi, for his part, is deeply asleep, and his only reaction when Jyn gets up is to move into the warm place she’s left on the mattress. Jyn smiles slightly at him, a little shocked at the level of uncomplicated affection she feels for him and the others, but the smile leaves her face somewhat as she looks back at K2. She doesn’t have them all together yet after all.

There’s no biological reason for a droid to clear its throat, but Kay’s approximation of the sound is weirdly close to the real thing, and it jolts Jyn out of her reverie. She hurries after him, not that there’s any particular need to hurry. Protocol droids aren’t known for their speed.

Kay doesn’t say anything else to her until they’re well out of earshot of the room where the rest of the Rogue One crew is sleeping. She briefly thinks that it’s strangely considerate of him, until he turns to her.

“Cassian is gone.”

It’s like the bottom drops out of Jyn’s stomach. She isn’t even sure what Kay means. He was recovering, he can’t be-- she can’t even approach the thought that Cassian might have died, not now, not after they all got off Scarif, not like her dreams--

If Kay understands her gaping, horrified, expression or not, she never knows, but he clarifies. “He’s left the med bay. No one can find him.”

“Weren’t you with him?” Jyn finally manages, once her heart has slowed enough for her to say anything coherent.

“It’s night. I power down at night.” Kay’s sounds offended. 

Jyn rubs her face hard, willing the analytic part of her brain to kick in. “How is that even possible? Have you asked the med droids?” Kay’s stare, expressionless as his face is, is enough to tell her it’s a stupid question. “Alright, fine. But how did he even get out of the med bay? He can’t walk, Kay.”

“I estimate that Cassian could make it to anywhere in the base, and approximately 2km outside of the alliance’s perimeter undetected, before his injuries would force him to stop.” Kay’s voice is prim, and now it’s Jyn’s turn to stare, disbelieving. 

“He’s got a broken pelvis and leg, Kay.”

“You don’t have as much data on him as I do.”

She had to grant him that. She had known Cassian for all of what, a week? “Fine. So we’ll find him.” And drag him back, she doesn’t add. It doesn’t seem like too much to ask to keep the Rogue One crew out of danger until they heal. She’ll have some choice words for Cassian when they find him. She knows she’s only mad about it because she’s trying not to panic, but in the interest of not panicking, she’s more than willing to hold onto that anger. “We should get the others. Bodhi and Baze can help.”

“No.” 

She’s startled by the flat statement, and turns back to Kay. “Why not?” He doesn’t answer, and her voice drops into a growl. “Kay, what aren’t you telling me?”

Kay is silent for another few seconds, and she’s about to prompt him again when he speaks. “There’s a speeder missing.”

The weight of it hits her at the same time as her analytic side finally kicks in. “Cassian stole a speeder.”

“I believe so, yes.”

Jyn thinks hard for a second. “Does anyone else know?”

“Why do you think I went to you?”

Jyn huffs a humorless laugh. “So that’s a no.” Another moment of thought, and then she’s in motion, Kay now struggling to keep up with her, which remotely Jyn thinks must be very frustrating for him, after being over two meters tall. “How far do you think Cassian could get on a speeder?”

“There’s no reliable way of knowing, but no more than 15km.”

“Do they still have those thermal scanners out near where they keep the speeders?” She only vaguely hears Kay’s agreement, and then she’s breaking into a run. Her leg throbs with pain every step, but she can’t take inaction any longer. She knows what she needs to know. 

There’s no one guarding the speeders, why would there be? The Alliance doesn’t have the kind of manpower to set guards on things no one there would want to steal anyway. Jyn manages to find a thermal scanner in one of the boxes of supplies tucked along the side of the base, and Kay hobbles out of the door just as she locates a pair of coms. She thrusts one at him. 

“I’ll keep you updated. Run damage control until I get back.”

She doesn’t wait for him to respond, hopping up on a speeder, praying she remembers how to steer the damn thing from Saw’s training years ago. She clips the thermal scanner to the front, hoping it’s sensitive enough to pick up a speeder trail. They don’t touch the ground, but they do run hot. Luckily, there’s only one speeder-safe trail away from the base, so that’s the one Jyn follows. This isn’t at all like Cassian. She may not have known him long, but she knows that half of the disapproval she gets from Draven is because Cassian suddenly started disobeying orders after he was sent on his first mission with Jyn. Cassian’s reputation is reliability. Stealing a ship and going to Scarif had been the kind of thing no one had expected him to do, because that’s not the kind of thing he does. But at least he’d had a reason for that. Stealing a speeder in the dead of night and disappearing into the jungle?

Jyn barely avoids getting clotheslined by a vine, and resolves to focus more on where she’s going. A faint trace is beginning to show on the thermal scanner, and she speeds up slightly. She isn’t going all that fast. There’s no sign of the moon, and a light rain is beginning to fall, so aside from the half-circle of headlights and the glow on the display of the thermal scanner, Jyn can’t see a thing. There aren’t any particularly dangerous lifeforms on Yavin IV, but Jyn’s pretty sure if she stops paying attention she’ll end up hitting a tree.

The trace gets stronger as she goes, and Jyn keeps speeding up, impatient to find Cassian. His disappearing like this had been enough to badly rattle Kay. Partly, Jyn almost appreciates that, because it justifies the level of panic behind her ribs without her having to think about it. But on the other hand, Kay knows Cassian far better than she does, and if he thinks there’s reason to be afraid for the man…

The trail veers abruptly to the right, off the path, and Jyn almost follows it before her headlights land on the tipped-over speeder at the edge of the rough road. Without much thought, because she’s too afraid to let herself think, she grabs the thermal scanner from the front of her speeder, pulling it up short before she reaches the trees, and hopping off clumsily onto the uneven ground in a way that makes her injured leg jolt with pain, although she ignores it.

Blindly, half-running, she stumbles after Cassian’s trail into the woods. She doesn’t stop as she breaks into a clearing at the edge of a small lake, doesn’t stop when she spots him, lying on his back near the edge of the water, in fact doesn’t stop until she’s next to him, having dropped to her knees, shaking him.

To his credit, Cassian looks appalled to see her when he opens his eyes. She’s so relieved to see him, to see him alive, not that she’d let herself entertain the thought that he wouldn’t be, that without much thought to why she’s doing it, she bends down and kisses him. Not gently. This isn’t like Scarif. There’s no greater cause at work here, and if he’s going to insist on nearly dying this regularly, she’s going to make it as emotionally hard for him as possible to check out. They’re a team, and she’ll do what she has to just to drag him into that team with the rest of them.

It’s easy to tell herself that. It’s less easy to believe it when she breaks off the kiss and sees his shocked face staring up at her. 

Viciously, she turns on the com. “Kay?”

“Here.”

“He’s just stupid, not dead.”

“Should I send a medical transport?”

Cassian starts to protest, but she cuts him off. “No. I won’t need one once I’ve killed him.”

“That would seem counterproductive, Jyn.” 

It’s the first time Kay hasn’t called her by her whole name, and in her annoyance, she barely notices. “Fine.” She holds out the com to Cassian, who still hasn’t really moved, watching her with wide eyes. “Here. Say something so Kay can relax.”

Cassian hesitates, and clears his throat a little, and suddenly Jyn realizes where Kay got the sound from. “You didn’t have to send Jyn after me, Kay.”

“Right. Because disappearing into the jungle with injuries that should keep you in bed isn’t the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

Cassian’s lips lift slightly in what might have been the ghost of a smile if he hadn’t caught Jyn’s glower. “Uh, Kay, keep the med droids off my case until I get back.”

“They’re not the ones you have to worry about.” Kay says tartly, and the com goes black.

The rain is properly falling now, and Jyn’s hair falls into her face, dripping, as she glares down at him. 

“What were you kriffing thinking?”

When Cassian had pointed a sniper rifle at her father’s head, and she had thought he had been responsible for her father’s death, he had stonewalled her, refusing to back down, defending himself angrily from her accusations, no matter how valid those accusations had been. But for this he doesn’t even seem to have words.

Finally, lamely, he manages. “I was thinking it was three in the morning, and no one would notice I was gone.”

She’s aware of how intense her anger can look on her face, and she doesn’t care. “We both know you’re a better liar than that. Kay was there. Powered down or not, there was no way you were sneaking out and back in again without being noticed.”

Cassian gives that frustrated huff of air she’s heard from him before. “What do you want from me, an apology? I didn’t know he would send you out here.”

“I want the truth.” Jyn hates how her voice sounds petulant when she says that. She sounds like the kid Saw Guerrera left behind. “Cassian, we died together.”

“Did we?” He laughs this time, but it’s a bitter sound. “Wow, that must be why my ribs hurt so much.”

“You know what I mean.” The anger is back in her voice again, and she’s fine with that. Better that than hurt. He falls quiet, and she waits. She’s out of her element here, trying to get him to open up to her. That’s usually something other people do to her, right before she catches a ride on the nearest ship to the other side of the galaxy. But with Cassian it’s different, not because of their almost-kisses, or the actual kiss that she just threw at him. She’s kissed people before. It isn’t because he betrayed her, lying to her about her father, not even because he had inexplicably come back for her again and again, something no one else had ever done for her. 

It’s because when they both knew they were going to die, he needed her as much as she needed him. They may not have actually died there on that beach, but they looked death in the face together and taken enough comfort in each others’ presence that it had been ok. Not right, but ok. But since then he’d been steadily trying to close whatever that raw connection had been, and it isn’t fair, because it isn’t his alone, and Jyn isn’t ready to lose that.

“Cassian. Just tell me. We haven’t got anything else to lose.”

Cassian isn’t looking at her, staring up at the sky. The rain has stopped, for now, but they’re both soaked to the skin. With Cassian’s injuries, he really shouldn’t be out here, and she has to wait for his answer, but she does.

“I woke up feeling like we were still on Scarif.” His voice is soft, when he finally speaks. “I had a dream that-- I made it up to the tower. Krennic was there. But you weren’t, you were…” He swallows. “And I dreamed that when I woke up in the med bay, Draven told me that the whole alliance was on Alderaan. When the Empire destroyed it.” She’d never heard a tremor in his voice like that before. Finally, he looked at her. “When I woke up for real, I couldn’t breathe, so I came out here. It was too hot. Too sticky. It felt like Scarif. So I got on a speeder.”

“You didn’t stop to wake Kay?”

“I didn’t even see Kay.” It’s a quiet admission, but it speaks volumes about how panicked he had been, and Jyn sits heavily next to him, abandoning her crouch. The wet from the ground soaks through the seat of her pants immediately, which she ignores.

“I’ve been getting those too.” He looks up at her, and she continues. “The first few nights, before you woke up, I kept dreaming that you died in your sleep. And when you died, so did everyone else.” He’s still watching her. “Bodhi was always the last to die. I’d run through the base, trying to find him, and I’d always be too late.” She hesitates. “Those dreams didn’t really stop.”

She’s so startled by the touch of his hand that she almost jerks back, but he doesn’t say anything, and she lets him take her hand and hold it, much like they had on Scarif.

“Why did you kiss me?” He asks the question without preamble, and Jyn feels herself flush.

“Mostly because I was mad.”

“You kiss people when you’re mad? You must do a lot of kissing, then.”

Maybe it’s the absurdity of the situation that makes her find that funny, but she doesn’t quite laugh. Now that she’s not as panicked or angry, Jyn notices that the nighttime temperature of Yavin IV is actually a great deal cooler than she’d realized. She needs to get Cassian back to base. “Aren’t you freezing?”

He lets her change the subject, although she’s certain he isn’t letting it go. “You know I grew up on an ice planet, right?”

“So you’d think you’d have enough sense to not go out at night without some kind of coat. Especially hurt.” She’s teasing him, but only just. “Are you ready to come back?”

“Would you listen to me if I said no?”

“I might.” Her voice is light and insincere, and he snorts, although it seems to hurt his ribs. When he finally looks up at her again, his expression is soft. It makes her think of the rush of affection she had felt for the Rogue One crew earlier when she’d left them sleeping. But unlike that, this is definitely complicated.

“We can go back.”


End file.
